Page 113 of Shades of Grey & Gold

I continue, “Nico operates the way our father operated. That’s… a Nico problem.” I let the faintest suggestion of a smile touch my mouth. “But now it’s everyone’s problem—because, just to be plainly honest, I will give up myself and any one of you to get her back. And Nico will do the same.”

A beat.

“And you won’t like the way I handle problems if they come up,” Nico says pleasantly, from beside me, in the tone of a man describing the weather.

Chuckles from the older end of the table.

Wide eyes from the younger side of the room.

A door opens.

Every head turns.

Rudi stands in the doorway, still in the clothes from his day off, taking in the room with the expression of a man who has walked into something and is rapidly reassessing.

His eyes find the broken chair on the patio as he closes the door behind him. He turns back to Nico.

“What happened out—”

“We redecorated,” Nico says, gesturing around the room. “Do you like it? Very open concept.”

Rudi stares at him.

“It was load-bearing, had to go,” Mikey offers from the side of the room. Someone tells him to shut up.

I am not listening to any of this because my eyes are zeroed in on what Rudi is holding.

He follows my gaze down to his own hands. Steps forward. He extends them toward me and his face does something careful and sorry.

I take them.

Her shoes. The black mesh heels with the square toe that she bought with my sisters. I cannot believe I am holding these right now in this room with these men because she should be wearing them.

She should be wearing them and complaining that her feet hurt and making me carry them home. I should be telling her I told you so about the heel height while I carry her instead.

Her face moves through my mind like a film reel I can’t stop.

Her smile.

The smirk in the café when she ordered something different because today felt different; she looked happy and like sunshine under that smirk. The way it pulled at the corner of her mouth like it was fighting to become something bigger, something full, and I was watching it and filing it away for later. The way I file everything about her for later because there is nothing about her I don’t want to keep.

Her eyes.

Her hair falling across her face and her eyelashes in the morning before she’s fully awake.

The dimple in her right cheek that only appears when she smiles all the way.

The way her nose crinkles when she’s frustrated.

The way she looks at me sometimes like she’s still surprised I’m in front of her and she still hasn’t finished deciding what to do about it. Like she doesn’t realize I’d lay myself at her feet.

I’d do anything for her.

Because she’s it—she’s the light.

I set the shoes on the table in front of me. Gently. Both of them, side by side, toes pointing toward the door.

I look up.